Nirvana
by TCLessley
Summary: In which we discover the true desire of Sakura’s heart.
1. Chapter 1

Kakashi walked leisurely through the streets of the crowded marketplace, enjoying the bright sunshine and cool breeze that wafted in from the harbor. He and his team were returning home from a complicated and bloody mission in Water, and so he had said nothing when it became apparent his subordinates wished to indulge in a little sightseeing.

The port city was massive, easily holding seven or eight Konoha's in its gargantuan sprawl. It was easy to see why it had caught the interest of Naruto and Sakura and even Sai. Kakashi, who considered himself jaded to all things new and exciting, just enjoyed watching the three shinobi, cataloguing how they had changed since the last time he had seen them.

They had not all been teamed up together for quite a while. He reminisced for a bit, recalling the missions they had been assigned in the aftermath of Pain's destruction. Those had been bitter and gruesome and soul-sucking missions. But, Konoha had needed rebuilding, and rebuilding an entire Village was not cheap. So, they had taken whatever missions they could get.

Somehow, they had all made it through relatively intact to enjoy a cheerful day of browsing through market stalls and marveling at the strange and grotesque things they found therein.

The only one missing today was Yamato, but he had other duties to attend to – namely his own batch of genin. Kakashi did not envy the man.

It had been difficult enough putting up with the three before him. At least he had not had to deal with a twelve-year-old Sai. The boy had been bad enough at fifteen. He had reminded Kakashi too much of himself – like Sasuke had only in a more deeply disturbing way. Over time, his fake-smiles and ill-concealed sense of superiority had given way to a vicious sense of humor and what some might have termed a slightly unhealthy appetite for the pleasures of the flesh. Kakashi wouldn't condemn the boy. You did what you had to do to stay sane, and at least when he smiled now, it usually reached his eyes.

If Sai had become a man of lascivious gazes and infrequent grins, Sakura had become a woman of quiet smiles and knowing glances. The anger and excitability of her youth had refined itself into a poised stillness, a confident grace. An aura of peace and tranquility surrounded her. It would be difficult to mark her as shinobi. She seemed more a rich man's genteel wife or a shrine's pious maiden.

In contrast, Naruto was still his overwhelmingly obnoxious self.

"Whatcha lookin' at, Sakura-chan?" he asked, trying to get a look over her shoulder. The boy still chased after Sakura like a lost dog.

"A bracelet." She showed him the golden bangle she had been studying under a shopkeeper's watchful gaze. It was of a fine quality, if Kakashi was any judge of these things, and he was. But, it was plain and unadorned, not something most kunoichi would look twice at.

"Are you gonna buy it?" Naruto piped excitedly. His voice still rose several octaves when he was being over-eager, like now. It made Kakashi smirk under his mask.

"Most likely." She gave the shopkeeper a reassuring smile.

"Why do you buy jewelry everywhere we go, Old Hag? You never wear it. And if you did, it wouldn't suit you," Sai queried not unkindly. He seemed to be genuinely curious. In all honesty, Kakashi was a bit curious himself.

"Perhaps I am building myself a dowry," she answered simply, a teasing lilt to her voice.

"What's a dowry?" Naruto questioned loudly. It was easy to forget that the boy had largely raised himself and so still knew little of custom and tradition and things that everyone took for granted.

"A dowry," Sakura patiently explained, "is a display of a family's wealth, often used to entice an even wealthier man to marry one of their daughters."

"So, you'd have to pay someone to marry you?" Naruto asked confusedly. "That's crazy, Sakura-chan. Guys should have to pay _you­_, not the other way around."

"That would be prostitution," Kakashi couldn't help but add.

Sakura colored slightly while Naruto gaped and Sai snickered under his breath.

"Kakashi-sensei, you have become worse than Jiraiya-sama could ever have hoped to be, I fear," Sakura rebuked playfully. She was the last of his three students to call him sensei. At times, it made him feel old that such an accomplished young woman called him sensei. At other times, he felt a wealth of pride that she would still acknowledge him as her teacher. And at still other times, the sensei tacked on to the end of his name, spoken by a beautiful girl nearly half his age, made him feel things better left unexamined.

Sakura paid for her bauble after debating its value for some minutes with the shop's owner. The poor merchant never even stood a chance. She was a ruthless bargainer, using the full force of her feminine wiles to drive the price lower and lower. With a few batted eyelashes, a bottom lip nibbled in pained indecision, and artfully misted eyes, she walked away having paid two-thirds the price even Kakashi would have had he been interested in purchasing the piece in the usual fashion.

It became plain that they were approaching the harbor as they began to pass fish hawkers and some of the more exotic seafood vendors with ever increasing frequency. As they turned a corner, a vast fleet of ships came into view. Anything from tiny fishing trawlers to ocean-going super tankers sat docked in the murky green waters of the port.

With a jubilant cry, Naruto began to rush toward the docks, only pausing when he realized that no one was following him. "Can we go see the ships, Kakashi-sempai? Can we, can we, can we?"

Kakashi raised a hand to the back of his neck, scratching absently, "Didn't we just spend three days on a boat?"

"Yes, but it wasn't _those_ boats," Naruto wheedlingly pointed out.

"I'll go with him," Sakura offered good-naturedly.

Kakashi nodded, "We'll meet back up at that jewelry stand around three. Alright?"

"That's fine, Sensei," Sakura smiled, "I'll drag him back by his ear if I have to."

"Don't pull too hard. He already looks enough like a monkey," Sai quipped cheerfully.

"Hey, you two aren't very nice," Naruto said sulkily, though he was still smiling. "Can we go now, Sakura-chan?"

"Yes, Naruto. Let's go." She took his hand and led him toward the harbor, nodding and listening attentively to his childish chatter. To a casual observer, they would appear to be young lovers out for a stroll along the docks, not two trained killers on their way back from assassinating an entire clan of rival ninja.

Kakashi grinned, shaking his head at their retreating forms. He had enjoyed spending time with his team, but he was also grateful for the alone-time Sakura had afforded him. He needed a chance to unwind a little before slogging back to Konoha. From the looks Sai had been shooting toward some of the more disreputable back alleys, Kakashi was sure he was grateful as well.


	2. Chapter 2

Weeks, perhaps months later, Kakashi awoke to find himself confined to a hospital bed with no real idea of how he'd gotten there. His mind was full of mist and fog, and memory was a slippery knave dancing always just out of reach. Perhaps he had tried one too many Raikiris or Kamuis. Or maybe he had been hit over the head with a lead pipe. Anything was possible. All he really knew was that he hurt much too much to be dead, and that a woman was holding on tightly to his right hand.

He knew it was a woman's hand because though he could feel calluses and scars, it was still soft and delicate and nails that were longer than any man would find practical were dimpling the flesh of his palm uncomfortably. She was obviously a kunoichi, but then who did he really expect to be sitting vigil at his bedside? Cracking his good eye open cautiously, he felt momentarily relieved that the lights in the room were dimmed.

Turning his head to the side proved impossible, but the woman had noticed he was awake and had risen to her feet so that she stood in his field of vision. He opened his mouth to speak but the only sound he could coax from his throat was a rattling puff of air. He tried again. "Sa..kura?"

"Shh, shh, Sensei," she crooned, extricating her hand from his so that she could bring a chip of ice to his parched mouth. She painted the melting bit of ice around his dry and cracked lips, not stopping the circular motion of her fingers even after it was gone. Eventually she seemed to realize what she was doing and, blushing, dropped her hand back to her side.

He was not surprised that she could touch his mouth, only that she would. He was never allowed to keep his mask on in the hospital until the medics were certain he was out of danger. Sakura had probably seen his face a hundred-thousand times in the course of her medical career.

His tongue darted out to collect a little of the moisture she had deposited on his lips. He attempted to ask her how he had come to be in the hospital and why she had been sitting at his side. All he could manage was a gasped and ragged, "How…? Why…?"

"Shh. Shh." She repeated, brushing his bangs tenderly away from his forehead, like a mother – or a lover. "Don't try to talk," she softly admonished.

"I'm sorry that I had to wake you. But there is something that I need you to do for me," she continued in her low, soothing tone of voice. She crawled up onto the bed next to him, careful of the wires and tubes that littered his body. He panicked, wondering if he had lost not only the memory of the cause behind his hospital stay but of the illicit affair he had been having with his former student. He prayed to all the gods that he had not because having sex with Sakura was something one would want to remember.

He heard the monitors he was attached to complain loudly as his heart-rate increased dramatically. The hand she placed on his chest did not immediately help until the chakra she was funneling into his system reached his overly-stressed organ, forcing it into a calm, sedate rhythm that the monitors happily accepted as normal.

She rested her head just above his shoulder. "I'm going to die in three days," she whispered into his ear.

Had her hand not been where it was, pinning him down, he might just have managed to jerk out of the bed entirely. His monitors gave another loud screech before her chakra regained control, evening out his breathing and his heart-rate and probably manipulating the chemicals in his brain because he was suddenly much less concerned with her impending doom than he thought he ought to be.

"Just listen to me," she commanded, still speaking in a whisper. "I'm going to go on a mission tomorrow. A routine assassination. It will be quick and it will be clean and I will get out without anyone knowing Konoha had anything to do with it. And then I will vanish. It would be too much to hope without a trace. That is why I'm telling you now. Because I think you are the only one with any hope of ever finding me."

"I am asking you not to look. Show a complete lack of interest in what has happened to me. Pretend you are the cold, unfeeling bastard that everyone thinks you are and stay out of it. Because I know if you look, you will look in earnest, because you know no other way to exist. And then you will find me, and you will have to kill me, because I will not come back with you."

"…Why?" he croaked, confused beyond measure.

"I can't live like this anymore. I can't handle the guilt. I want to _save_ people not murder them in their beds!" she explained, her voice still pitched low so that only he could possibly hear her.

"Can… ask… for leave. Don't… run," he tried to reason, using the few words that would escape his throat.

"You know that they won't grant me leave. They only let Sasuke _retire_," she nearly spat the word, "because he was too broken, too damaged to be of any use to them. They will not let me go."

"I am not Tsunade. I am not the granddaughter of Senju Hashirama. I am just the daughter of merchants, of civilians, who scored too high on an aptitude test and possessed too much chakra to go unnoticed by the Academy recruiters. No one will think twice about taking me out. I know too many secrets, and I am perceived to be too weak to not break under torture. I will never be free. Unless I am dead." She paused, her forehead making brief contact with his shoulder.

When she again spoke, her voice was laced with a deep sadness. She sounded bone-weary and near to breaking. "So I am asking, begging you to let me go. To have a life where I do not bathe in the blood of the innocent and the wicked alike every day… every day…" She shook her head viciously to clear it. He could tell she was near to shattering right then and there. "I was not meant for this, Kakashi-sensei. You knew it the first time that you laid eyes on me. I would never have made it this far if I hadn't been sandwiched between Naruto and Sasuke."

She was wrong, but he didn't have the words or the energy to tell her.

"But, but…" She took a moment to compose herself, steady herself, wiping at eyes he knew remained dry despite her evident sorrow. "I don't need your answer now. It will be plain enough when I am either allowed to live in peace somewhere far, far away, or I am dead. Either way, I will be free."

She rose to leave, as careful in her rising as she had been in her descent. But, before going she leaned down to deliver a gentle kiss to his cheek and to whisper once more into his ear, "I am sorry to ask this of you, Sensei. I will miss you. All of you. _So_ much. But it is the only way."

And then Haruno Sakura was gone, and the next time Kakashi heard her name spoken was by a frantic Naruto pleading for his aid in finding her, begging him to send his dogs to track her. "She's been missing for five days," he cried belligerently as Kakashi continued to ignore him. "She could be in the hands of the enemy. She could be hurt somewhere all alone and scared. Kakashi-sempai, she could be _dead_."

"Sakura is a big girl, Naruto. She can take care of herself. And if she can't, Konoha is better off without her," he replied stoically, returning his attention to his orange-covered book, signaling an end to their discussion.

He could still see Naruto out of the corner of his eye, the disgust and heart-break painted so clearly across the young man's expressive face. It was better that he hate Kakashi now for this than to hate him later for being forced to kill his friend. Still, it was a miserable feeling losing the comforting presence of one student and the trust of another.


	3. Chapter 3

A year, maybe five, had passed since Haruno Sakura's name had been added to the Cenotaph when Kakashi once again found himself flat on his back in a bed surrounded by the smells of sickness and cleaning solvents. He kept his eyes closed and his breathing even, attempting to piece together where he was. He was not in Konoha, and he was not dead. It left few options, none of them good.

He could hear little. Night sounds came to him distantly, that of crickets and wind and the cries of nocturnal predators. He was in the country, then, and either the room he had been placed in contained a window or its walls were very thin. There were none of the usual sounds indicating another patient: low, pain-filled moans, uncomfortable shiftings and rustlings, labored, ragged breathing. He had been isolated, but why?

Suddenly, a door slid open, and light footsteps approached his bed. He attempted to continue to feign sleep.

"I know you are awake," a warm, low feminine voice commented from just above him – an achingly familiar voice.

His eyes flew open. Something was blocking his sharingan, but it didn't feel like his hitai-ite. It didn't matter. There was indeed a window set in the far wall, and it let in enough moonlight to see by.

The woman who stood over him had long, dark hair and equally dark eyes. But he knew her face, would know it anywhere.

"Sakura…?"

The woman who wore Sakura's face smiled, "So, you have found me at last." Her voice was resigned, peaceful even.

"How… Where the hell am I?" He kept his voice down by dint of the fact it was night and he had no idea who could be waiting in the wings to slit his throat. That he was still breathing surprised him to no end.

"You are in my clinic," she easily replied, turning to fiddle with the wick of a lamp on a bedside table. "May I?" she asked before lighting it, as if he had any real say in what she did. He could barely feel his chakra, let alone grasp hold of it, and every part of him ached as if he had been worked over by an expert masseuse with a grudge. He nodded anyway.

She lit the lamp and replaced its cover. The light it cast about the room did little to alleviate Kakashi's paranoia as it seemed to only enhance the shadows instead of banish them. It did, however, provide him a better look at his current hostess and former student – former friend.

Her pink shock of hair was gone. A thick, black mane of loose curls now fell to her waist, and nondescript brown eyes had replaced her vibrant green. Her sun-bronzed skin was now the pale ivory of one who had learned everything she knew from books or who had never seen the sun except through her window. Her face was slightly more defined. She had lost any residue of youth in her time away from Konoha. But she was still beautiful – still his Sakura.

She continued to look down at him, a strange little smile tugging at the corners of her mouth. And then she spoke again. He hadn't realized how much he had missed her voice.

"I felt you stirring as I made my rounds. I wanted to make sure you didn't try and run off while you were still in such a bad way and undo all my hard work. I would have only had to collect you again in the morning, anyway. I doubt you could make it more than ten steps as you are, which means you probably would have gotten all the way down to the koi pond with your idiotic stubbornness." Her smile widened into a grin for a moment.

"You should try to go back to sleep. Not all of your wounds are healed, and as you probably have noticed, your chakra is still thoroughly depleted."

He knew she was right. Even after this brief of an encounter, his eyelids were already drooping, betraying him. He yawned, his jaw cracking loudly. "How long have I been asleep?"

"Eight days," she replied succinctly.

He could only give an inarticulate grunt in response. Eight days? And he was still so weak.

"I will check on you in the morning." She could still make the most innocuous of phrases sound like a threat. "And, I will answer any questions you might have, as well." And she was still as cunning as ever. She had laid her bait. He wouldn't try to leave until after he got his answers.

She leaned down and carefully blew out the lamp. "Good night," she said as she pushed open the door. He waited until it slid home behind her to give in and allow his eyes to drift closed once more. If he dreamed, he did not remember it.

When next he awoke it was to the smell of tea and honey and to the feel of sunlight tickling his nose. He opened his eyes to find Sakura placing a serving tray bearing a white ceramic tea pot, two cups, a pot of what he assumed to be honey, and a bowl of what smelled suspiciously like plain rice porridge on his bedside table.

"Good morning," she offered, that same inexplicable smile from the night before gracing her lips. She was wearing a plain blue yukata, and her hair was pulled back into a tight bun. After helping him to sit up and adding an extra pillow behind his back for support, she poured him a cup of tea, leaving it plain as he preferred, and handing it to him without a word.

She pulled a chair next to his bed and fixed her own cup of tea, adding a generous dollop of honey and stirring exactly seven times. Some things never changed. Crossing her legs at the ankle, she took a sip from her cup and cocked her head to the side expectantly.

He continued to stare at her. Finally, "How did I get here?"

"Some of the local boys found you quite a bit more than half-dead in a soybean field. Luckily for you, they ran and got me instead of their fathers. The people here… are not overly fond of shinobi, of any soldiers, really." She took another sip of her tea.

He followed up her response with the next logical question, "Why didn't you kill me?"

"Believe me, the thought had crossed my mind." She smiled ruefully into her cup. "It seems I am still more self-centered than I would like for it would have been very, very selfish of me to ensure my continued existence by ending your own."

"And very ill-mannered," she continued after a short pause. "I owe you my life, after all."

There was nothing to say to that – nothing worth saying out loud, at least. He could have said that he hadn't done it for her. That it had been for the sake of his own conscience and Naruto's remaining innocence. That he hadn't wanted the burden of killing his renegade student heaped on top of all the others that he bore. But, he would have been lying.

So instead, he sat and drank his tea until there was nothing left but bitter dregs.

"Eat your porridge before it gets cold," she counseled, taking his cup and replacing it with the unappetizing bowl of mush.

He could feel her eyes on him, following the movements of his hand as he proceeded to eat his breakfast. He imagined her ready to swoop in at a moments notice should his grip waver. Struggling valiantly to keep the tremble out of his hands, he dutifully fed himself under her watchful gaze. Suddenly, a wave of dizziness assailed him

"What… did you put… in this…?" he ground out, his vision blurring, his words slurring.

"Nothing that will do you any harm, Sensei. Sleep." He felt the bowl plucked from his nerveless fingers. And then he felt nothing at all for some time.


End file.
